Exonerated inmates push Ohio to scrap the death penalty

TOLEDO, Ohio (RNS) As a state task force reviews the administration of the death penalty in Ohio, a man who spent 15 years on death row said lawmakers “should not be looking at fixing the death penalty; they should be looking to get rid of it.”

David Yonke

David Yonke is the editor and community manager of ToledoFAVS. A veteran reporter, editor, and author, his name is familiar name to many area readers for his many years at The Blade newspaper including the last 12 years as religion editor.

10 Comments

Duane Lamers

A fundamental question for critics of the death penalty: Where is to be found one instance in the U.S. where an innocent person has been executed? To my knowledge no case has ever been brought forward.
There are no instances where the death penalty isn’t merited? This flies in the face of tradition as well as moral theology.
Just curious: Where do these anti-death-penalty people stand on the question of the definition of marriage. I’ll make a small wager that they favor both changes.

Citizen Alan

As a practical matter, it is impossible to pursue a criminal appeal on behalf of a dead person. Only a criminal defendant has grounds to pursue appeal, and that right ceases to exist once he is dead. As an additional factor, the execution of a convicted criminal is usual a signal to investigators that it is now okay to throw out all the evidence they’ve been storing for decades, which means that DNA testing is not available even if appeals were possible.

But none of that matters in the end. What matters is that the debate is ruled by people like you. Reason is irrelevant in the face of religious fervor, and there is no argument that can persuade people like you who lust for the death of others to abandon your dreams of killing people for the glory of the bloody gods you worship.

Duane Lamers

Citizen, I’ll grant you that the disposal of evidence hampers the reopening of an investigation. However, I am still unaware of any case being brought forward that provides solid evidence that the condemned was not guilty.
The rest of what you write, a mess to be polite about it, makes charges and assumptions you cannot justify. Your second paragraph is evidence that you’ve thrown reason out the window and have decided to rant.
You dislike the fact that there is a death penalty and you will listen to no arguments in support of it. Whatever.

Citizen Alan

Just curious: Where do these anti-death-penalty people stand on the question of the definition of marriage. I’ll make a small wager that they favor both changes.

Obviously, you’d lose where the Catholic Church is concerned. By your bizarre desire to conflate abolition of the death penalty with the gay marriage debate, I imagine you consider yourself a Christian. You’d be wrong about that, as Jesus will explain to you in some detail before he sends you to Hell.

Duane Lamers

Wow! A personal statement of pique that’s supposed to represent reasoned opinion. The Catholic Church has made no definitive statement regarding capital punishment. That Pope John Paul II spoke strongly against it, he did so from a personal perspective and did not declare it to be an article of faith or morals, the bases for a pope making an infallible statement.
My “conflation,” as you call it, was another way of saying that I consider your anti-death penalty position, a liberal one, not altogether unlike the liberals’ position on marriage–or, more correctly, the abolition of the concept itself.
I’m “not Christian” for failing to regard homosexual relationships as marriages? You, sir, are dissatisfied with the traditional idea regarding marriage and want to change the definition. That’s what liberals do. They avoid speaking about “abortion as a choice”: and speak of “women’s health” as the issue. Sorry, sir, but conservatives can see right through this.
I have not said that gays are sick or evil. nor have I said that there’s never a reason for abortion. Perhaps you can modify your ranting henceforth.

[…] Cleveland priest travels with three exonerated Death Row inmates to make the case against Capital Punishment. Their message is consistent with accounts I’ve read about many Death Penalty trials, […]